Clocks
by metacognitive
Summary: Surely they'd fire her after today; she wasn't able to make it in, after all.


_Summary: Surely they'd fire her after today; she wasn't able to make it in, after all._  
_Genre: Tragedy? Drama? Action? Whatever 2012 was?_  
_Note: Total OC. **But: **is realistic one. As in, bystander. Because, seriously, this section needs to be cleaned up. **Desperately.**_

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**_Clocks_**

_Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.  
__Oscar Wilde_

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The alarm clock was _not_ supposed to have woken her up so late. Unknowingly, she slammed several of its buttons, eager to go back to sleep. Despite this, it continued to blare out words from the radio until she finally sat up, glaring at the small machine with hatred befitting a scorned lover. With an exaggerated sigh, she climbed out of bed before grabbing her toothbrush and storming off to bathroom to get ready. As she entered to room to grab clothes for a quick shower, she realized it was already nine o'clock. She had froze; she should have been at work _that very second_.

Shouting out a curse word, she sprinted back to the bathroom, simultaneously stripping herself of her pajamas, brushing her hair, and washing her face. At nine-o-seven, she was pulling her auburn nest into a messy bun, having given up combing out it's hundreds of knots. Being a child at heart, she merely slid down the banister of her stairs, the flat she had rented having two (albeit small) levels. After crashing into the hall's wall, she managed to make it into her kitchen and skip a conventional breakfast in order to grab a bottle of green tea and two granola bars. She didn't realize she'd forgotten her shoes until she'd opened her car door, and then hastily unlocked the front door in order to make it to the crowded closet beside the umbrella stand.

By nine twenty-three she was on her way to work. She was five miles over the speed limit, still exclaiming a round of swears as she caught a red light. Gritting her teeth, she tapped her fingers against the steering wheel and glanced from the clock to the light every ten seconds as if willing time to speed up for her. _Lord knows the so-called end of the world is coming soon, _she thought while rolling her eyes, fingers tightening slightly on the worn steering wheel of her car, _I need all the hours I can get..._

Sighing, she attempted to calm herself with the knowledge that Pearl, one of her co-workers, would at least attempt to cover for her. With a grim grin on her face, the light turned green and with that, she sped away, chuckling. _They're going to fire me_, she thought, somewhat amused, _ah well, at least Pearl tried_. It wasn't the first time she'd been late, and something told her it was her last. The sheer absurdity of that thought made her snort, mumbling, "They need to loosen up, they can't -"

It was then that the ground began to shake uncontrollably. At least, more so than she had ever had the chance to experience. Her car veered off to the right, and she narrowly managed to pull away from an oncoming car. Eyes wide, she tried to pull off to the side however the earthquake became even more violent and an oncoming pick-up truck side-swipes her bug. "Ah!" she cries out, hissing as the car slams past a mailbox, letters hurtling over the windshield as the ground continued to tremble. Slamming on the brakes, the bug becomes as still as possible within the world around it, and she presses her forehead against the steering wheel, trying to calm her breathing.

"Okay," she told herself, taking deep breaths and looking around, "it's all going to be -" The world began to shudder ten-times worse than it had been previously. An earth-shattering crash echoed, and for a moment all was quiet. Then the screams began, starting with her own. Her hands were shaking as she tried to restart the car, eyes wide as she watched the world crumble in the rear-view window. Slamming her foot on the peddle, she took off in a burst of speed, the peddles flat against the car's floor. She didn't pay attention to the screams around her, nor did she notice the speed of the car steadily rise, floating from sixty to seventy-five, and from there to ninety.

But the earth had it's own plans, and even as the few minutes painstakingly passed by, the growing hole in the earth was steadily catching up to her, despite the fact that she was going one hundred and twenty miles per hour. "No," she breathed, and leaned forward, wishing fervently for the car to _speed up_. The dial went up to one-thirty, but all hope vanished when she saw the pile up just a few blocks up. Swerving in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the collision, her speed and the small distance between them proved a much more powerful match than she expected.

She cried out as the bug slammed into a Pathfinder, the glass shattering on impact. The spray of glass ravaged her arms in the desperate moment of protecting her face_. It's not as if it'll make a difference_, her conscience told her_, it's not like you'll make it_... She lowered her arms slowly, painfully aware of the dozens of shards ripping through her skin. With her breath came in rapid puffs, she was aware of the sickening silence encompassing the entire city. Suddenly she heaved, coughing and sobbing as the environment around her continued to be ravaged by earthquakes. Her lips parted as a silent scream made it past her barrier, the world blurred and twisted before her eyes as they began to roll back into her head. "No!" she shrieked as the car began to tilt backwards, and even as her fingers scratched at the cracked windows and door lock, she knew that there was no way out.

Death was coming for her.

The airborne sense that she usually associated with roller coasters took hold of her body as the car went into free fall, only to land who-knows-where. Her head cracked against the spider-webbed window, her vision quickly filling with spots. She blinked almost lazily at the quickly passing world around her, vaguely aware that her senses were being clouded from blood loss and, _really_, shouldn't she be worried about surviving? Smiling dreamily, she laughed as a train suddenly crossed her vision. "But they can't fly!" she giggled, and saw there was a plane just in front of it, actually _flying_, like it should be. "There we go!" she cheered, but winced as she saw her bleeding hands. "Oh..." she trailed off, then realized she was going to be incredibly late for work.

Surely they'd fire her after today; she wasn't able to make it in, after all.

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_A/N: Love it? Hate it? Questions, comments, concerns, or insults? Press the review button and lay it on me._


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